19 people from all over Europe participated in the ReIReS School in Paris, February 18-22, 2019. The school turned out to be an exciting journey through several archives in the French capital that shared their precious and rare collections.

Organizer École Pratique des Hautes Études presented, among others, its own unique Shiite archive and a collection of Cuneiform tablets, but it also involved its network. Participating institutions of the ReIReS School were, for example, the École française de d’Extrême-Orient, the Fonds Paul Ricoeur, the Fonds Wladimir Golenischeff, and the Institut français d’Études byzantines.

By visiting these institutions, the participants could become acquainted with many special archives and documentats relating to Europa, Africa and Asia, and concerning the religions of Mesopotamia and Roman Antiquity, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Taoism.

All kinds of media were presented and explained, ranging from books, tablets, letters, printings, and photos to audio materials and more.

The explanations of the experts on the various books and artefacts in almost all the sessions encouraged a lot of questions from the participants or led to group discussions, as happened during the close reading session on an unpublished and handwritten letter of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur.

Dealing with historical religious studies has to do with a wide range of topics, places, and archives, and the ReIReS School in Paris has shown that convincingly.

 

Images: Frédéric Labrouche